Showing posts with label parity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label parity. Show all posts

Thursday, October 27, 2016

White House Parity Task Force Report Leaves Out Seriously Mentally Ill

Federal Parity Task Force Report Fails to End Federal Discrimination Against the Seriously Mentally Ill that is part of Medicaid.

The Mental Health and Substance Use Disorder Task Force report issued by the White House today shamefully fails to end the federal government's own massive discrimination against people with serious mental illness that is embedded in Medicaid. The Medicaid Institutes for Mental Disease (IMD) provision prevents states from receiving federal reimbursement for seriously mentally ill individuals between 18 and 64 who need long-term psychiatric hospital care. This limitation applies only applies to the mentally ill and parity can not be achieved without eliminating it. If you have a disease in any organ and are Medicaid-eligible, Medicaid pays with a single exception: individuals who have a mental illness in their brain.  

The IMD Exclusion causes states to lock the front door of psychiatric hospitals and kick the mentally ill out the back. The failure to eliminate the IMD Exclusion will cause more individuals with disorders like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder to be offloaded to jails, shelters, prisons and morgues. The Task Force should have called for ending this injustice. 

We do appreciate the recommendation of the Task Force to end the 190-day limit on inpatient care for the seriously ill that is part of Medicare Part A and urge the President to act on it immediately.

Background Info: Op-ed by DJ Jaffe in Washington Post
http://mentalillnesspolicy.org/media/bestmedia/imd-exclusion-washington-post.html

Friday, November 8, 2013

Obama Mental Illness Parity Regulations Fail to Help the Most Seriously Mentally ill

The Obama administration announced new regulations requiring private insurers to do what the federal government wont: provide health care coverage for mental illnesses equal to that provided for other physical illnesses. The new regulations will help many, but only few of the most seriously mentally ill. And while requiring private insurers to end discrimination against mental illness is to be lauded, it is unconscionable, dangerous and expensive to allow the federal government to continue its own discrimination.

President Obama should focus any incremental social service and health care programs on those who need it most, rather than the higher functioning.